Dream within a dream.

I'm at Lindsey's place, only it's completely different. It's a house rather than an apartment, and there's carpet in most of the rooms. She has a live-in boyfriend (husband?). We're hanging out and chit-chatting while I help her move the furniture so we can shampoo her carpets. For no reason, a girl I used to see on the sly back in high school (we'll call her Jamie) walks in and it ain't no thing. It appears that she and Lindsey are at least aquainted with each other. Lindsey has to go to take her man some lunch and a package of paper, and encourages us to take a break while she's gone. Jamie and I sit down on the couch and start talking, but then she's Tamara, and Tamara is talking about how much she misses Jamie. I'm like, "I thought you didn't even know Jamie!" to which she replies, "Everyone has a Jamie." Then she is Jamie again. Lindsey is back and she says that since all the stuff is out of the way, ____ (her fella) will finish when he gets home. She said his name but (sorry!) I didn't absorb it or I can't remember it. I stand up and bang my head on a low shelf. Suddenly Mom and I are driving through Germantown and something in my car goes wrong. I have to pull over and Mom says that we need a specific tool from a specific store, and points to an upscale-ish department store, which is closed but we see people inside. One of the people opens the door for us and then we're coming off the escalator and into a beauty-counter area. My attention is drawn to the Chanel counter and I trot over to get a spritz of some Allure, Luke's favorite on me. Out of nowhere, there's a singing man in my way. I immediately recognize him from high school; he was a total jock, one of the "hot guys" and he had a big thing for me which of course was pretty much ignored at school, since I was not exactly a cheerleader. I stopped talking to him because what I needed was a friend and he was disturbingly horndoggish. He never got in my pants, and I think that through high school there was some lingering resentment about that even though he was basically nice to me. We'll call him AJF. Anyway, AJF is between me and the Chanel counter, singing and dancing around. His singing voice isn't too bad, kinda like Michael Buble and in that style, but he looks like a damn fool. And he's singing about all the women he's looking at, making up the song as he goes along. It's creepy; he's singing about all the asses and thighs and how he just can't help himself. He's using the "p" word constantly. I'm the only one who notices him. He's danced off to another lady, so I start looking at the pretty perfume bottles and making a mental note to look for a new atomizer. Then he's back, and he's making a big, grand sweeping gesture with his arm that knocks over and breaks all the pretty bottles. Undaunted, he sidles up really close and says, "Hey, funny-face! My funny valentine! Dance, funny girl?" and breaks into a jig and starts singing about the tall redhead (that's me) whose lady-parts he never knew but still wants to. I'm impressed by his clever rhyming but he still looks like an idiot and I still think he's pathetic. Then I'm suddenly back on Lindsey's couch. Jamie and Lindsey are looking down at me and I realize that when I bumped my head and conked out and that I had been dreaming. I say to Lindsey, "Oh, man... I need to write down my dream quick for Nocturnal Admissions! That was crazy!" and she agrees and starts rummaging through things for a particular dream notebook she keeps. She rummages into the other room and Jamie starts rubbing my shoulders. Then she touches my face and leans in to kiss me and I stop her. I'm very confused and I don't want her. I get mad and tell her she doesn't want me in particular, she just generally wants everybody. She starts crying. Lindsey walks in and hands me the notebook. She notices Jamie crying and looks at me like, "What's her deal?" and I roll my eyes and shrug. I flip open the notebook and start flipping to find a blank page. We hear her significant other pull into the driveway and come up the walk. I flip to a page that has a picture pasted to it, a picture of Lindsey and her ex, and there's a poem to go with it. She gasps that she thought she had thrown it away. Jamie storms out. Lindsey's guy, who is too dream-blurry to identify, comes in and sees the picture/poem in my hand, yells "Goddammit!" and walks back outside and sits in a chair on the front porch. Lindsey gives me a hateful look and I feel really low, like I've gotten her in big trouble. She goes outside too and that's when I wake up.

I Don't Speak Jazz

I was playing in my old high school band at a carnival at night. Lindsey Turner was sitting beside me with her trombone. Mr. Haffly was directing, and he kept telling Lindsey to be quiet and behave. But she was comical and agitated - like she had just slammed twelve shots of espresso. Lindsey kept pushing her luck and sniping under her breath. He finally ordered her out of the ensemble and to the equivalent of the carnival's "principal's office." She sat there a second and then said, "Really?" but he was serious. I grabbed her sleeve as she passed and whispered, "Meet me outside and I'll drive you home!" Then Haffly told me to be quiet.

Then I was slogging through the carnival looking for Lindsey. The ground was muddy and wet and the cuffs of my jeans were being dragged through the muck. My feet felt wet. I walked all over the carnival grounds, inside and outside the fence. I had a companion, but I don't know who it was. "Where the hell is Lindsey?!" I kept saying. My companion said, "She's with Phil - way over there. Look!" I looked across a great big field and there was Phil, walking through waist-high weeds at night. "Hey, Phil, is Lindsey with you?!" I yelled. "No!" He hollered back and kept trucking. "Why the hell is Phil in that field?" I asked my companion. "Because he's a hiker," Companion replied.

Suddenly I was walking with my sax, so I started improvving while I was looking for Lindsey. I walked past a fence gate, noodling around the "All I Know Is Tonight" tune by Jaga Jazzist, and I walked right past Mrs. Haffly. I didn't realize it was her til I passed her and she said, "Hel-LO?!" I turned and she was glaring at me like, "What the hell?!" I turned and said, "Hey! How are you!" but then I remembered that she was mad at me because I skipped my lesson that day. Steve Haffly sidled up and asked, "Cindy, how did Tamara do at her audition?" and she replied, "She did awful. She informed the judge that jazz is another language and she doesn't speak it." I was appalled. "HEY!" I started to yell, but she walked away. "I did not!" I called after her, and Companion led me away to find Lindsey. My sax was suddenly gone. We rounded a warehouse and I found Lindsey and Mrs. Haffly with their arms around each other heading into the warehouse to hang out with everyone else. "There she is!" I said to Companion, and headed in. "Hey!" I said to Lindsey, and she gave Mrs. Haffly a funny look. Mrs. Haffly said, "Egotistical bitch!" I asked Lindsey who she meant and Lindsey shrugged. "Where were you?" I asked. "Around. Cindy is mad because all three of her female sax players skipped their lessons today." I felt awful. Then Mrs. Haffly walked back by and she said, "Tamara, if you want to do your lesson tomorrow I will drive you home." I smiled, "Okay, sounds good!' I felt relieved.

Then the dream segued into a long storyline about electricity and muddy trails that I can't recall now.

Then Alicia came running in to a doorway, crying hysterically. I asked her what the matter was, and she replied, "A lot is the matter!" And I followed her outside and the wheel to her father's maroon Buick that she's using while her car is in the shop has turned sideways and been pushed out from under the car like the axle had snapped into.

If you'd ever ridden in this car, you'd know why I dreamt that.